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The Pittsburgh Penguins are not only good hockey players. They are mentally strong as well.

They didn’t let the excitement of Thursday’s morning trade for Jarome Iginla distract them one bit from the task at hand, which was winning their 14th game in a row. They controlled the contest against the Jets from the get go, notching a tidy little 4-0 victory over the Jets that was never in doubt from the middle of the first period on at Consol Energy Center.

(Just how good are the Penguins right now? They’ve allowed nine goals in their last 10 games. That is impressive.)

The good news for the Jets is the Toronto Maple Leafs did them a huge favour by coming back to beat the Carolina Hurricanes 6-3 at Air Canada Centre on Thursday night.

That means the Jets still have a six-point cushion on the Hurricanes atop the Southeast Division. Carolina, which has three games in hand, will be in Winnipeg on Saturday afternoon for the second of two critical clashes between the team this week. The Jets won 4-1 in Raleigh, N.C., on Tuesday.

Thanks to the Maple Leafs, the Jets can just put Thursday’s loss where it belongs: in the trash.

“We’ve been playing some pretty good hockey lately,” defenceman Zach Bogosian said. “It wasn’t our best game tonight, but we still have that lead in the division and we can’t get down after this game. We just gotta get ready for Saturday.”

The enigmatic Jets were big underdogs going into Thursday’s clash, despite having won two in a row, so the loss isn’t that much of a surprise. It’s also not a shock because the Jets are now 0-10-2 in their last 12 visits to Pittsburgh and have been outscored 57-25 in the process.

What was a bit alarming were some of the mistakes the Jets made. On Pittsburgh’s first goal late in the opening period, Sidney Crosby delivered a backhand pass to sniper Chris Kunitz, who was not being covered by anyone despite being only a few feet from the net. He made no mistake on the shot.

The Pens led 2-0 after the first period thanks to Evgeni Malkin’s questionable goal, which he appeared to kick in, but it was the home team’s third goal that left you shaking your head. The Penguins had just taken control of the puck after a Dustin Byfuglien pinch, and for some reason Antti Miettinen decided to leap into the bench for a line change. Chris Thorburn had to scramble onto the ice quickly, but by then it was too late. Crosby hit Pascal Dupuis with a perfect pass and the latter guided the one-timer past Al Montoya, who got the start but didn’t get any help.

That was especially true on Pittsburgh’s fourth tally, which was a shorthanded marker. Byfuglien had a chance to keep the puck in at the blue-line, but he treated it like a grenade and actually knocked the puck towards his own goal. Not only that, but he basically just stood there and watched as Dupuis strolled into the zone on a 2-on-1 with Tanner Glass and fired it himself into the net.

It wasn’t surprising to see Miettinen receive only one shift in the third period, but Noel said, “I’m not going to make an over-assessment on those individual plays. You have to look at this game as a whole and say this is what it is, and then you just move ahead with it. I’m not going to sit and dissect every shift, because you’re going to drive yourself crazy. And I don’t want to do that because I’m close to being crazy as it is.”

One also has to wonder what was going through the mind of GM Kevin Cheveldayoff as he watched Thursday’s game from the Jets booth at Consol. It was evident his team doesn’t have the consistency — Evander Kane was minus-4 one game after notching four points — or the overall talent to even think about beating a team like the Penguins in the playoffs, but it looks like the Jets are going to win the Southeast because nobody else wants it.

As a result, he should still strongly consider selling off some of his unrestricted free agents if other teams come calling and then hope for the best in the post-season.

Penguins pound Jets, but Winnipeg remains six points ahead of Carolina in Southeast as 'Canes lose to Leafs

Pascal Dupuis scored twice, including once shorthanded, Sidney Crosby had two assists, and the Pittsburgh Penguins strolled to their 14th straight win tonight, thumping the Winnipeg Jets 4-0 at Consol Energy Center.

Tomas Vokoun made 20 saves against the listless Jets, who remain six points ahead of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Southeast Division after the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the 'Canes 6-3 at Air Canada Centre on Thursday night.

That just adds even more intrigue to Saturday afternoon’s game between the Jets and Canes at MTS Centre. Carolina has three games in hand.

There was a thought the Penguins might have been distracted by this morning’s early-morning trade for Jarome Iginla, but they were nothing of the sort. If anything, it was the Jets who looked lost.

Winnipeg, which had a two-game winning streak snapped, fell to 0-10-2 in their last 12 visits to downtown Pittsburgh.